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It’s the Reserve Bank’s week in Australia this week, with four speeches and public appearances from the governor Glenn Stevens and his deputy Phil Lowe, plus the release of one of the bank’s major reports on the Australian economy – its first financial stability assessment for 2014.

The Aussie dollar ended the week on a solid note and is again within sight of the 91 USc mark and looking to remain around that level.

Gold futures finished higher on Friday night, our time, recovering some of the losses from a four-session losing streak.

Big global investors have become more cautious because of the tensions in Ukraine crisis and the slowing Chinese economy and spate of company collapses.

The US Federal Reserve has signalled that interest rates could start rising earlier than previously expected after its March meeting ended earlier this morning with the central bank altering its forecasts for the economy over the next year and changing the criteria for returning rates to more normal levels.

Well, for a central bank that spent the last three months of 2013 moaning and groaning about the high value of the Australian dollar – and even warning of possible intervention, yesterday’s minutes from the Reserve Bank’s March board meeting were remarkably devoid of any serious mention of the currency and its value – which remains above 91 USc this morning.

The Australian dollar’s recent strength continued yesterday, helped by an about turn on local interest rates by one of the big bears of the markets, Westpac’s chief economist, Bill Evans.

Here’s China’s next stimulus plan for the economy – it’s embedded in the Chinese government’s “National New-type Urbanisation Plan", which was released on Sunday, which calls for a massive build-out of transport networks, urban infrastructure and residential real estate from now until 2020.

All eyes will be on Russia this morning for reaction to yesterday’s ‘yes’ vote in Crimea on succession from Ukraine.

Oil and gold will lead the reaction to events in Ukraine today in commodity markets.

If you had to pick the oddest event in the markets last week, so far as Australia is concerned, it was the continuing strength of the dollar.

Ukraine will dominate markets and the week from today, overshadowing a solid week of major figures in some economies.